The sad truth is that the rewards for productivity and hard work such as health care coverage, retirement security, opportunity -- rewards that used to make America's workers "middle class" -- are on the rocks.

All the wage increases over the past 15 years have gone to the wealthiest 10%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. All of them. And almost all, 95%, of the income gains from 2009 to 2012, the first three years of recovery from the Great Recession, went to the very richest 1%.

Something else has happened, too. The bottom has fallen out of America's wage floor. And the erosion of the minimum wage has lowered pay and working standards for all of us.

Congress is considering a proposal, called the Fair Minimum Wage Act, from Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller of California, supported by President Barack Obama. The act would raise the minimum wage over two years to $10.10 an hour and let it grow with inflation.

The Senate is expected to consider the proposal the week after Thanksgiving.

A raise in the minimum wage would give 30 million workers a little more money to pay for rent, food and other needs. But from other quarters, a different suggestion is on the table.

Publishing executive Steve Forbes, in a column appearing in the November 18 print edition of Forbes magazine, recommends that congressional Republicans go on offense about the minimum wage. He casts the issue as a partisan attempt to "put the GOP in the worst possible light" and advises a spin campaign to defeat a minimum wage increase.

Fortunately for America's working people, the public has a less cynical view.

Iverson said she started working in 2012 at $7.25 an hour, and makes $7.35 an hour now after Missouri adjusted the minimum wage. She makes between $400 and $600 a month. Her rent is $650 a month.

When asked how she could pay her rent on those wages, she said she had a landlord who works with her. "I'm kind of on my last little leg, because I've been late on rent. I'm actually behind three months in rent.

"Sometimes I can pay it, sometimes I can't. I get paid twice a month, and both checks go to rent and the rest of it goes to utilities to the point where I don't have any money left to buy anything for my kids -- to buy them clothes, shoes or anything they need."

She said she manages to feed her four children on $543 worth of food stamps a month.

There's a lot Congress could do for Iverson and other low-wage workers to stop the erosion of wages and working standards for America's hard-working families -- from ending the job-killing budget cuts of the sequester to investing in the creation of good jobs.

But one choice is clear and easy and can make a difference right now: Raise the minimum wage, including the outrageous rate for tipped workers, and index it to inflation. Let's not allow America's lowest-wage workers to keep on falling further behind.